Hey there email friends… as you surely know, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Nowhere is this truer than online and, in particular, the weird world of email newsletters. All sorts of complex limitations mean the usage statistics offered to newsletter authors about their readers are, I can assure you, totally misleading and should never be trusted.
But if one were to employ these spurious data as the basis of decision-making, and I should stress again that one should never do this, then it would build a picture of the readership’s interests, albeit an entirely misleading one. To that end, and just for our casual amusement, this week’s 💥BLAST! relies heavily upon the numbers: I’ve picked out what might be interesting based on what the statistics say was most engaging in the previous 125 editions. Don’t do as I do.
☕️ 5 ways drinking coffee might protect your health: Here we are then; the listicle that confirms you’re right to be doing what you’re already doing. Sweet, sweet vindication! Your morning caffeine boost isn’t just helping kick-start your day—drinking a few cups of coffee daily reduces the risk of chronic liver disease by over a fifth, according to a new study.
🏢 Burnout at Work Isn’t Just About Exhaustion. It’s Also About Loneliness: More people are feeling tired and lonely at work, and it’s having an impact not just on individuals but organisations too. These authors’ research shows that 50% of people are burned out, and companies have struggled to figure out how to counter it. Many recommendations treat burnout as an individual condition, but its link to loneliness suggests that greater human connection at work may also be key to solving the burnout problem.
❤️🔥 There’s no ads! To chip in, either donate a coffee or tell two friends: either share this email or usher them towards blast.red to join in. Love you, mean it ❤️🔥
🙅♀️ The Guilt-Free Guide to Saying No: Many of us hesitate to say no to others. With mindful tips like these, saying no is an emotionally intelligent skill anyone can master.
⏱ The Best Time-Management Advice Is Depressing But Liberating: The journalist and author Oliver Burkeman asked his friends to guess, off the top of their head, how many weeks make up a typical human lifetime. They were miles off. A person that lives to 80 gets about four thousand weeks; that’s all. The typical approach to time management is to seek ways to cram ever more into our finite time, but Burkeman argues that this is wrong. You can make time for things that matter, or you can make time for more email.
😀 7 Most Effective Self-Esteem Tools and Activities: Your level of self-esteem has to do with how worthwhile you feel. It’s different than the idea of self-confidence, which has more to do with your ability to do something successfully. This article explores what self-esteem is, its origins and roots, as well as some helpful tools.
🗣 Talking to Yourself Can Actually Be a Really Useful Way to Cope: While it may sound strange, asking yourself questions is actually a common practice in somatic therapy, used to clarify awareness of what is happening in the body. This writer’s therapist suggested it as part of a somatic therapy process to enable her to further develop mind-body awareness in a way she could more easily understand.
👕 Dead white man’s clothes: How fast fashion is turning parts of Ghana into toxic landfill: It’s the dirty secret behind the world’s fashion addiction. Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill, creating a catastrophe on the other side of the world.
📢 Marc Ribot Makes the Case for Loud Music: the American guitarist and composer regularly points extremely loud amplifiers directly at his head. Audiologists say this could make one’s ears howl, create an uncomfortable sensation of density in one’s head, and eventually make it impossible to hear human conversation. Yet he persists… Why?
🏰 Britain’s Idyllic Country Houses Reveal a Darker History: Great estates are among the country’s treasures. But their connections to slavery and colonialism are forcing visitors to reckon with myths they may not want to abandon.
🚁 Winnebago Made A Flying RV That Camped Where No Other RV Could: This RV was designed to camp in the most remote locations. The Winnebago Heli-Home is an RV that can camp just about anywhere.